


“wow.”

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [59]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Cambridge, Climbing, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22271056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Alexander and George meet as climbers at Cambridge.Canon EraWritten for the fifty-ninth prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.
Relationships: Alexander Arcady & George Mukherjee, Alexander Arcady/George Mukherjee
Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [59]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533164
Kudos: 15





	“wow.”

“Cambridge is breathtaking at night.”

The voice behind me shocks me out of my contemplative thoughts.

“Hello?”

A shock of white darts between the columns behind me and I lose myself trying to follow this glimpse of colour. As I bounce my gaze around the rooftop for any sight of someone, somebody quite different from the average Cambridge student catches my eye.

Standing before me is an Indian young man, terracotta skin with the russet stains of a tan, and thatches of dark hair, looking debonair in a white silk shirt, and a sharply-cut waistcoat and jacket.

“Alexander Arcady, I wouldn’t have pinned you as a climber.”

Attaching the appearance of the rakishly handsome Indian young man with thick hair slicked back using Brilliantine to the London drawl that backs the clipped schoolboy tones of a well-educated English student forces me to realise who he is: George Mukherjee, the studious genius of an aspiring Pinkerton who swans about Cambridge in beautiful clothes, excelling without effort in all his classes and handing it to the local teenage boys in tennis matches on the Cambridge courts. The image of him in my mind is one of a young man rejoicing in the warmth of high summer, with a determined yet kind good-sport demeanour, wearing canvas shorts and a striped shirt and slamming a tennis ball down over the net.

“I wouldn’t pin you as a climber either, Mukherjee. Surely you’re too busy flinging yourself about tennis courts?”

“A man can multitask, my friend.”

His hand touches my shoulder, and his movement guides my gaze to where he is looking: we’re no longer facing each other in an accusatory sort of standoff, but beside each other and holding ourselves against the wind that brushes the top of the museum. “Do you climb with a group?”

“No.” He buttons the top two buttons of his jacket and slips his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “No climbing group will take me. I’m Indian and therefore the worst kind of sneak.”

“That’s not true.” I blink and am once astonished by how awful people that look as I do can be to those who do not. “Hazel Wong climbs.”

“Does she?” I have a feeling that he knows her, or at least  _ of  _ her. Who doesn’t? “She has Daisy Wells. I do like Wells but her influence infuriates me.” He lifts up his arm, the contrast between his dark hand and the white cuff of his shirt almost as sharp as the contrast between the white of his shirt and the black of his jacket. “I would have that influence if I were white.”

“Does it bother you? It doesn’t seem to.”

“Every day. The trick is to not let it show, and always dress the part.”

I pause, turning to look at him as he stares out across Cambridge with hard eyes and his jaw set firmly. “What do you want to do when you’re older?”

He huffs a mournful, self-deprecating laugh. “I’m not entirely sure. Well— no, that’s incorrect. I  _ am _ sure but it’s… it’s a schoolboy fantasy that I’ve been unable to shake.” He seems to come to his senses, snapping his head towards me with a furious look. “Why am I telling  _ you  _ this, Arcady?”

“I don’t mi—”

It’s too late: George Mukherjee is already gone.

* * *

A week later, I find myself climbing again. I prefer to climb alone, to clear my head and sit astride statues with the wind in my hair.

This particular night, I am melancholic. Word from my family, my uncles and aunts and young cousins, is warning me against contacting Mom and Dad, who are fighting again. That is, unless I want to hear one talk the other down in the most awful ways. I don’t.

My chin rests atop the statue of a bird — it an eagle, making me feel closer to America and the ludicrous amount that eagles are represented — and I let my feet dangle in the cool night air. It betrays the constant feeling of falling. I wish that I could fall and never land.

“Cambridge is breathtaking at night.”

I turn my head to see George Mukherjee standing on the narrow ledge that I climbed from to get to the state I’m sitting on.

“Hello again, Mukherjee.”

“Arcady,” he greets, hanging onto the outcrop over his head and peering at me, trying to analyse me. “What on earth has you looking so utterly blue?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit!” It reverberates around the building. “Something is obviously wrong.”

“Fighting parents,” I reply in a glum tone, feeling the cool stone against my chin.

“I know the feeling.” His shoe nudges my back and I turn to catch his smile. “Have you heard of Miller?”

“The don at your college?” I snort. “Have I  _ ever _ ?”

With a laugh, he tells me, “Well, you’re about to hear more. I was doing some detecting and you’ll never guess what he’s doing: he’s bringing in  _ women _ . To his  _ room _ .”

“Women?!” I gasp, disbelieving of what he had just told me. “Why, how rum!”

“I know!” In that moment, George Mukherjee looks as bright as anything, his entire face glowing.

“Why, that must have taken work to figure out! Why on earth did you decide to…” I trail off as I realise. “That’s the career, isn’t it? The schoolboy fantasy you mentioned?”

He stiffens and I watch as his entire demeanour locks up, until he is as closed as he is during the day. “What of it?”

“Same here. I’ve always wanted to start a detective agency.”

The two of us lock eyes the moment I say this. “ _ Really _ ?”

“Absolutely! It’s all that I’ve wanted to do since I was a schoolboy, such a schoolboy fantasy.”

George Mukherjee gives me a curious look and says, “How would you like to detect something together?”

“Such as?!” I ask, far too eager.

“You’ve heard all of the rumours about Steinfeld?”

I nod. Steinfeld is practically  _ famous _ for possibly being a poof, f****t, fairy. “Who hasn’t, Mukherjee?”

“We’re going to investigate him.”

I have never seen someone so determined, and I have always wanted to see someone as firey with determination as that.

“You’re on, Mukherjee.”

* * *

“Cambridge is breathtaking at night.”

I feel the words more than I hear them, brought to my attention by the touch of his lips and transferred to me the vibrations of his voice against the back of my neck. “Just Cambridge, my love?”

His arms wind around my waist from behind and his chin digs into my shoulder. “Some other things too, Alex.”

“Such as?”

With a huff of laughter, he says, “You’re pushing the limits of my affection, love.”

“The limits that don’t exist.”

I turn to see him arching an eyebrow. “Don’t test me, Hastings.”

With a laugh, I lean back against him. We are sitting astride the grand central point on the roof of the university, the highest and most dangerous place to climb. Nobody ever dares do it except after their final exams.

“Why do you English celebrate today?”

Running a hand through my hair, he says, “It’s the anniversary of the time a group of thirteen men tried to detonate a bomb under parliament.”

I pause. “Do you celebrate the fact that they failed or the fact that they tried?”

George’s laughter grows from a hum against the back of my neck to raucous cackling. “I love you, Alex.”

“And I, you.”

Then my breath catches in my throat. On the lawn below us, something begins to spark and then there is a sharp whistle and colour bursts in the air above us. It’s a golden and rose puff of tumbling sparks that explodes with grandeur.

“ _ Wow _ ,” I breathe, my eyes fixated as red and gold, green and silver, bronze and red, burst in the sky and whistle and corkscrew, twisting into spirals and drooping slumps of explosions that spark like firecrackers, showering George and me with the golden remanents of sparks.

“It’s beautiful, George,” I manage to gasp out in the midst of my gawking. 

I feel his eyes fixed on me, on my face as it is bathed in every colour of the rainbow. “I know. You are.”


End file.
